


The World Turns With or Without You

by Atqh16



Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Aftermath of Violence, Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Foggy whump, Matt not being able to protect Foggy, Medical Inaccuracies, Medical Procedures, Torture, Whump
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-11
Updated: 2019-05-12
Packaged: 2020-03-01 04:07:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,394
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18792664
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Atqh16/pseuds/Atqh16
Summary: Matt and Foggy get kidnapped when a dangerous case Foggy is working on throws him in hot water.Matt can only listen in horror as their kidnappers torture Foggy when he stubbornly refuses to give up the leverage he has against them.And the worst part is? Matt hadn't been around at the office enough to notice Foggy choosing to take such a risky case and now it might be too late





	1. Where the table turns

The first blow lands on Foggy's stomach. Right where his liver should be. It knocks the wind right out of him, his muscles turn in to jelly and he's slumping forward against the ropes around his chest tying him to the metal chair, making it harder for him to breathe.

He can hear Matt calling out his name from his own chair that he's tied to behind him but he can't seem to make his vocal chords work well enough to muster up a reply.

For a moment he thinks he's going to puke but he takes a deep rattling inhale just as one of the thugs appear in front of him and start cutting away at the ropes. Not caring at how the serrated blade scrapes against the skin of his wrists and tear at his shirt to leave shallow nicks on his chest.

Another thug comes forward and Foggy's muscles are still to weak to fight them off when they lift him to his feet by his arms, drag him around the chairs so that he's facing Matt before dropping him unceremoniously on his knees. 

He tries to get up but before he can a solid kick to his cheek sends him sprawling on his side and choking on a mouth full of blood.

"STOP IT! STOP JUST LEAVE HIM ALONE!"

Matt's cut of by a right hook that knocks his glasses right off and the sight of it is what gives Foggy enough urgency to wobbly get to his feet. 

"Fuck you," Foggy yell viciously. Ignoring the painful throb at the side of his face that he knew was dripping a crimson red streak to his chin, "He doesn't have anything to do with this. I'm the one who fucked with you shit heads. Fucking cowards beating on a blind guy like it's hard." 

He punctuates his words by spitting out a thick wad of mucous and blood as close to their leader as he can.

The man in question looks unimpressed, but he marches forward, grabs him by the hair to pull his head back and lands a hit to his stomach so hard Foggy falls back on his knees and heaves up bile and blood and mucous on the cement floor. 

The man doesn't wait for Foggy to finish before landing a kick to his side, another to his chest followed by one one his back right above his kidneys. He kneels on either side of Foggy's hips, almost straddling him just as he pulls his arm back and lands a punch on his cheeks so hard it scrapes away skin and made Foggy's eyeballs rattle in his skull.

He pulls his elbow back again and brings down another blow on the other side of Foggy's face, again and again and again till Foggy's choking on blood and sobbing with tears and snot mixed into the red droplets pooling in tiny blots on either side of his temple.

"STOP! STOP PLEASE! PLEASE!", Matt screams, pulling violently at his binds till the rough knots dig blood red bracelets around his wrists. But the metal chair is bolted to the floor and the ropes twisted around his chest and legs refuse to give. He continues to scream but his cries fall on deaf ears that none of the thugs bat an eye too. 

"You could have made this easy Nelson." The man on top of Foggy says with a tired disappointed air as if he was talking to a child that had made him cross. "You could have just given up the files you stole from us. We would have let you go with just a few broken bones but now we have to make an example of you. It's nasty business. I don't like getting my hands dirty Nelson." 

"Foggy! Foggy just give them what they want! Foggy just give it to them!", Matt is full on begging now. Pleading for his best friend to save himself. 

But what was at stake was bigger than Foggy. Bigger even than both of them. Giving them the thumb drive with the incriminating files he'd stolen from them would mean dooming countless teenagers being dragged by these people into a life of crime, drug addiction and incarceration and Foggy can't do it. He can't. He promised. He promised he'd help those kids. He'd given his word. He'd held their mothers hands, grasped their father's shoulders and told them he'd try his best to help and he can't turn his back now. He's so close. So close. Just a few more hours and these fuckers would be scampering for somewhere to hide or risk getting dragged to jail with the proof Foggy's managed to scrounge. Enough for Brett to get a warrant for their arrest and Foggy can't risk all of that just to save his own skin.

Unsurprisingly enough, despite his resolve Foggy is still scared out of his mind. His sight is blurred between the swelling around his eyes and the tears that won't stop streaming to pale the bloody red streaks running down his face. He can't hide the pitiful sobs wracking his chest and if his tongue wasn't so swollen from the amount of times he'd bit into it when the blows rained down on him he would already have made his own pleas for them to stop. _"No more"_  he'd beg, _"please god, no more please"_

A part of him is glad that he's hurting to much to make himself look even more pathetic than he knows he already is. 

He thinks about how Matt is watching him curled up into a mewling bloody mess and it makes him cry even harder to think that the last thing his best friend might see is Foggy just being a miserable heap on the hard floor of a warehouse.

" _Please god just don't let them hurt Matt. Please just leave him alone. I'm so sorry Matt. I'm so sorry. I'm sorry you got dragged into this."_

He turns to his side and wretches up more disgusting brown bile when he hears the Boss say, "we're done here. Take care of him."

The man washes his hands from a water bottle one of his men tips over them before wiping them off on a handkerchief, folding and tucking it in to his shirt. He doesn't even glance back as he leaves the warehouse with most of his men in tow with only two left behind who don't waste time to drag Foggy to one of the beams where a noose had been tied around of one the hooks.

"What are you-", Matt tries to hold back the alarm that threatens to burst through his chest. He can't really tell what they're about to do until the noose is thrown over his partners neck and pulled tight.

"NO! NO! I'LL KILL YOU! I'LL KILL YOU! STOP! STOP! STOP GODDAMMIT! JESUS CHRIST PLEASE! PLEASE!", Matt thrashes against his bonds even more violently than before. He's screaming his throat raw and the bolts creak against the metal legs of his chair but the ropes are pulled to be even more unyielding around his limbs.

The thugs like before, ignore him. Trained well and utterly obedient to the instructions they were given. One of them holds Foggy up while the other tugs on the other end of the noose with the middle held up on the ceiling by a pulley.

He gives the braided cord a hard tug enough to pull Foggy to his feet. The second thug grasps the rope alongside him and together they pull Foggy off the floor.

The scream tearing through Matt's throat reverberates though the warehouse.

"NO!!!! NO!!! NO!!! GOD NO!! NO NO NO NO NO NO!"

They men secure the rope to the hook and leave, and Matthew can do nothing but listen to every creak of the noose continuing to tighten around Foggy's neck with every desperate kick of his legs that send him swaying in morbid circles 5 feet in the air. 

Matt can do nothing but just scream his best friends name even as his chair creaks and moans beneath him but stubbornly refusing to give. Time seems to move too fast and Matt can hear Foggy's movements become more lethargic and slow.

The fingers Foggy had held up to his neck to try and pull away the noose fall limply to his side. His eyes role up and his lungs let out what sounded like a final rasping effort for air.

Suddenly the skylight to the warehouse roof shatters into pieces that to Matt's ears sounded like a thunderous shriek, as a small familiar form falls though it.

Jessica doesn't waste time on her knees where she'd landed, leaping up to Foggy and breaking the rope holding him up with a sharp snap and falling back to the ground with him held gingerly to her chest.

Matt doesn't even notice Luke tearing at his bonds.

"He's not breathing", Jess says, placing him on the floor and starting mouth to mouth resuscitation.

Matt can hear Foggy's heart beat a weak thrum in his chest even as he sat close beside him. Fingers grasping Foggy's hard in a grip so hard it was as if he hoped the pain would be enough to shock his friend to consciousness.

Time again seems to pass too fast and it feels like hours before Foggy finally gives a horribly painful gasp from his audibly torn throat.

Matt isn't ashamed to say that he openly wept at the sound, "Thank God. Thank God."

The relief fades into urgency and he makes to lift Foggy into a cradle in his arms. "We need to get him to the hospital."

"What are you waiting for?!" He asks almost erratically when both Luke and Jessica make no move to help him.

"Matt," Jess starts, "If the mob finds out he's still alive and being treated in the hospital they'll come after him. We can't-"

"If he doesn't get treatment he's going to die. I'm _not_ letting that happen!"

"Neither are we," Luke cuts in quickly, "Claire and Karen are waiting at my place for us. They've got the whole place set up. We just need to get Foggy through the next few hours, till Brett's gets the warrant and we know it's safe to get him to the hospital-"

"It's not enough! He needs a hospital now! I'm not going to let him die! If they come after him I'll stop them! I can keep him safe!" Matt insists, having already gotten to his feet with his best friend held carefully in his arms.

"Matt listen to yourself! What are you going to do! Hold them off on your own? What do you think people are going to say about a blind lawyer fighting back a bunch of thugs-"

"I don't care! It doesn't matter! I'm going to do whatever it takes!"

"He's not going to be the only one in danger Matt! The patients, the nurses. If they get desperate enough to start a shoot out in the halls think about how many people are going to get killed!"

Luke's words are enough to get him to pause. He pulls Foggy closer but doesn't make another step to get away.

"Let me take him," Jessica piped up, "I'm faster. I'll keep to the roofs. I can reach Luke's place in ten minutes at worst and whoever might be watching this place won't be able to figure out where I'm going"

Matt hesitates for a fraction of a second before passing Foggy - who still sounded like he was breathing through a straw - into Jessica's arms.

She turns to leave but stops when Matt calls her name.

"Please just-", Matt can't make himself say the rest but regardless Jessica gives a stiff nod and jumps through the hole she'd made in the skylight.

Matt stands there silent as a statue for 3 minutes before Foggy's heartbeat finally fades to nothing in the distance.


	2. Tick tock goes the clock

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Matt tries to find out what he's been missing. Karen tries to fill in the blanks. Foggy doesn't seem to have much time

They make it to Luke’s place in 30 minutes by cab because it took them 10 minutes just to find one. Throughout the whole ride it took everything in Matt to not just jump out the car door and instead run the rest of the way. He knows it doesn’t make sense to do that. He knows no matter how fast he is he can’t actually beat a moving car. But somehow sitting quietly in the back of a car that smelled like patchouli, sweat and left over take out containers stashed under the seat for so long they’d gotten rotten made the anticipation so much worse.

He feels overstimulated. Agitated. As if any little thing could set him off. The world is a flurry or sound and smells and so much more and his filter has become non-existent but in spite of that, all of it is feels both suffocating, like white noise.

Like someone had left the radio on static and while it was just one sound the continuous hum and crackle grated on his nerves like nail on a chalkboard. He wants to scream but his throat felt raw and hoarse. He’d be surprised if he woke up the next day being able to speak at all.

They’re 3 blocks away when he’s finally able to zero in on Claire’s voice snapping out a flurry of instructions so quickly Matt can’t catch most of it. He can catch a thready unsteady pulse struggling to push blood through veins – the sound pulls his own down to his stomach as if violently tugged by a cable- and two other familiar heartbeats in the same room or at least nearby, one he suspects is Jessica’s and the other is Karen’s.

Karen……

Karen knew about this. She had known about all of it, about the case, about Foggy’s plan, the files, the deal. She knew.

Why hadn’t she told him?

Why hadn’t Foggy told him?

Why hadn’t he known anything about it?

* * *

 

The ride ultimately should have only been 12 minutes max but Luke insisted on being careful. Making unexpected twists and turns by feigning forgetfulness with the directions in an attempt to shake off anyone that might have been following. Matt had wanted to tear his hair out by the fourth sharp turn and when they finally arrived, he had practically leaped out if the cab and ran up the stairs. He can hear their voices more clearly now but they’ve gotten quitter. There’s another familiar sound, a soft hush and suction of air and the smell of disinfectant and sterile cotton swabs and gauze. The almost bitter metallic stench of fresh blood and he can also hear the sound of a careful prick and pull of needle and thread through skin. He holds back the urge to bang his fist against the door till it opens and instead stiffly presses the doorbell. They can’t afford to attract unwanted attention right now.

Jessica opens the door but before Matt can rush in Jess tugs him back by his arm.

“Horns I’m gonna need you to calm down a bit ok”

“Jess let me go”

She doesn’t but her grip loosens.

“Matt-“

“Jess please just- I need to see him”

The desperate plea in his voice finally does the trick. “Just… Don’t freak out ok”

Her words do nothing to calm his nerves but he understands why she warned him when he finds Claire and Karen crouched on a bed over Foggy.

The room _reeks_ of blood.

He can taste it everywhere. In the thick wad of cotton swabs piled in the wastebasket, on the plastic sheets where they’d laid his best friend, coating the gloves both Karen and Claire were wearing and most of all on Foggy who seemed to have so much of it coating his skin and clothes it feels like a second skin.

Matt places a palm on Foggy’s chest where he’s kneeling beside the bed and he pulls it back wet.

“Why is he bleeding so much?”

“Some of the blunt trauma he took broke through skin. He has a few lacerations on his back and abdomen. They’re not deep but a lot of small vessels had burst from the force of the hits he took and that’s what caused the excessive bleeding”, Claire explains before calling Matt’s name in a gentler tone, “He hasn’t lost as much blood as it looks”.

The nod he gives her is shaky and he takes a deep breath before asking, “What else? Tell me what else”

Claire lets out a tired sigh but her next words are delivered to him in the most clinical way possible, “Fractured if not broken ribs. The blunt trauma to his kidneys, there might be some internal damage or bleeding but I can’t tell without proper medical equipment and even if I could, if its severe there isn’t much I can do here. His right cheekbone is most definitely broken and the left is possibly fractured. Ruptured eye vessels, his throat- “Claire gestured upward and Matt notices for the first time Karen sitting by Foggy’s head, holding a resuscitation bag she continuously inflates and deflates without pause but Matt also doesn’t miss the slight tremble in her hands, “His throat swelled up from the pressure to his larynx. Intubation was the last thing I wanted to do in a less than sterile area but he couldn’t breathe. I don’t- “

Claire’s voice finally breaks and it takes her a second to take a deep calming breath before she can continue. “I don’t know how long he can make it without proper treatment. He’s covered in bruises and for all I know he could be bleeding internally. He’s got a swelling on his temple from what looks like a vicious kick to the head and he could be building up intracranial pressure and a severe concussion. There’s very little I can do about that. Basically, I’m going do all I can to keep him alive till it's safe to get him to the hospital but there’s a _lot_ of damage Matt.”

“It’s just for another 3 hours”.

Both Matt and Claire turn to look at Karen who only had eyes for Foggy’s purple and swollen face but was still shaking with every press and release of the resuscitation bag. Matt could taste a slight tinge of salt in the air that he’s sure isn’t his own.

It’s a surprise to him that Karen’s voice doesn’t tremble as much as she is when she continues, “Brett said that he needs at least till dawn to get the warrants and the people he needs behind him. The expose I wrote on the guy who did this, Daniel Lex, he’s a CEO for Lex Corps, International. The article comes out, his reputation gets ruined, his underground contacts on the run, I’d be surprised he’d make it till noon without the FBI knocking on his door with an arrest warrant too. 3 hours that’s it. That’s it Foggy, just hold on for another 3 hours”

The last part she whispers to herself and the still form beneath her. Head leaned down so her hair falls like a curtain between them and everyone else.

Matt doesn’t have a reply other then simply tightening his fingers around Foggy’s.

Claire’s eyes dart to all three of them before she gets up, ripping off her gloves and tossing them in the plastic bag beside her filled to the brim with bloody gauze and hastily torn sterile packaging.

“3 hours it is.”

* * *

  

“Why didn’t you tell me”

Karen looks up from where she’d been laying her head on the mattress, pillowed by her arms. Matt take’s a leaf out of her book and doesn’t look away from Foggy, hands firm where he worked the resuscitation bag he’d taken over from Karen an hour ago.

Karen hesitates and Matt suspects she’s staring at the mess of their friend with a guilty look.

“You were hurt badly when all of this started from the human trafficking case you took on a few weeks ago. Foggy didn’t want to risk you jumping in before you managed to heal up completely. And he…. he wanted to do this right. To do it clean, by the books. He wanted to make sure there were no loopholes, no possible escape they could wrangle up. He wanted to ruin them for what they’d done to those kids they’d dragged on to the streets. I think he wanted to prove to himself that his faith in the system was worth something”

“Worth his life?” Matt snaps.

He doesn’t have to have eyes to feel the accusatory look she sends his way.

“How is it different from what we both do every day? I risk myself all the time with every big article I write and we wake up every morning praying we’ll find a message on our phones telling us you’d gotten home safe.”

She holds Foggy’s hands to her forehead that looked like a fervent attempt at prayer. The taste of salt in the air was obvious now. “I tried to convince him not to do it but he wouldn’t listen. He said he needed to do something bigger to help people than just small fry cases that only helped a few. But he did everything right. He asked help from Luke and Jessica. He didn’t keep it a secret from me or Brett. He was careful and cautious and he kept it close to his chest though he didn’t tell us anything until he got all the files he needed. But one of the boys told them. The kid was probably just scared but they wouldn’t have found out if he hadn’t told them”

Again, Matt has nothing to say to that. Being struck speechless seems to be a common theme for him tonight. But what would there have been to say? He had failed his best friend. He’d been caught up in his own pursuit for justice to realize that Foggy had his own. Foggy had always seemed so untouchable. Protected by how he kept himself to helping the underdog in endeavors and cases small enough that no one would have noticed. How could he have forgotten that Foggy had just as much resolve as he did to help _anyone_ that needed it even if he felt like he didn’t have much to give outside of a courtroom.

His best friend who followed him wherever he went even when it meant living on nothing but good opinion, peach pies and the knowledge that he’d share an office with two of his closest friends. Foggy who left behind a life of luxury and more money they would ever earn in their humble office. To leave behind a woman he loved but who realized she needed more than a man with little ambition other than a small office with no air conditioning, uncomfortable chairs that squeaked and a plaque outside their office with his name.

Even when he had to tolerate Matt continuing his mission in fixing Hell’s Kitchen where he felt the law couldn’t.

Is this what it had felt like for him every night, hoping Matt wasn’t going to bleed to death because of a lucky gun shot?

He voices the question out loud and gets a gentle, thoughtful hum from Karen.

“More or less. But I’d like to think he understood, even if he didn’t like it. I think he knew what he was getting into the minute he wrote down our names on that napkin but he wanted to stick around anyway” she places a gentle kiss on Foggy’s knuckles, “I don’t think we understood how much he was willing to give up for us”

Matt realizes that she’s right. He had always assumed that Foggy understood that the city always came first. That whatever sacrifice Matt had to make, that no matter how much of his own blood he had to spill to do what he felt needed to be done would be worth it.

But now when he’s staring at the blood his best friend had spilled for the same reason, he can’t help but feel the foundation of his resolution begin to shake. For _him_ to understand what it felt like to watch someone you love put so much of themselves on the line.

He takes a deep breath but it’s not enough to hold back his own tears that start streaming down his cheeks.

_“Please wake up Foggy. Please. I promise I’ll be there this time. I’ll promise I won’t take you for granted anymore. Just please, please just wake up Fog. I can’t lose anyone else. I can’t lose you”_

His thoughts go unheard and Foggy doesn’t stir. Matt can’t help but feel like his best friend is paying the consequences of Matt's sins and he doesn’t try to hold back his grief anymore. If nothing else, Foggy deserved to know that he mattered.

* * *

  

Another hour and a half pass before something happens. Matt’s arms are aching from holding up the respiration device and is considering letting Jessica take over – she had offered to do so 20 minutes ago but Matt had staunchly refused and she hadn’t pressed the offer – when suddenly Foggy jerks upward.

“Claire!”

Foggy’s body has already begun to shake when Claire enters the bedroom.

“Shit, he’s seizing”

Matt hears a dial tone from the living room and Jessica’s voice.

“I’m calling the ambulance. This shit can’t wait.”

It’s a nod to how severe the situation has become that none of them protest.

The seizures last for 3 minutes during which Claire pulls out the tube and tells everyone to step back and not touch him. When its over Claire checks his airway but Matt can already tell Foggy is finally breathing on his own at the low but audible sound of air running in and out of his airway with a rasp that Matt is terrified will give out.

The ambulance arrives in five minutes and Claire convinces Matt to let her go with Foggy instead of him because she needs to give the Emergency personnel a detailed rundown of Foggy’s visible and possible injuries and Matt wants to scream at the sound of Foggy’s heart beat fading in the distance.

Matt knows if Foggy dies it will all be his fault.

**Author's Note:**

> Do leave kudos and comments if you like this. Even a "this was good" makes my day!


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